


On the Origin of Species

by CaticalRam



Category: Pacific Rim (2013), Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Character Death, stiles and lydia - science bros, tw: anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-14
Updated: 2015-03-14
Packaged: 2018-03-17 18:50:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3540242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaticalRam/pseuds/CaticalRam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three days after he was supposed to get his third doctorate, a nuclear bomb was dropped over Oakland, Stiles woke up from surgery, was told that he had lost his dad, but that they had been able to keep his leg.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Origin of Species

Thirty three days after Stiles Stilinski turned seven, his mother and father told him that his mom had to go stay in the hospital for a while ( _no Stiles, not because Mama had another grant due)_ because her doctor friends had found something wrong with the cells in her brain.

Thirty two days after that, his mother gave him her annotated copy of On the Origin of Species and asked him to keep it safe for her. He brought it with him every time he got to visit her in her hospital room and they read it together.

His mother stayed in the hospital on and off for long periods of time and Stiles’s dad had to work a lot, so Stiles got used to sitting alone and staying inside. Sometimes, Stiles felt overwhelmed by something that he didn't have a name for, and he felt sick from it, but it wasn't the same kind of sick that his mom was and that confused him. He reads and reads and reads because he finished the book his mom gave him a long time ago and learning more and more and more makes him feel like he forgets the pressure in his chest. Stiles learns to love the stretch of new knowledge because it fights the sick feeling in his stomach and the buzzing in his brain and _maybe if he learns enough and fight fight fights enough_ he can forget that he hadn't seen his mom in a week. He got in trouble at school a lot, especially during the times that his mom was in the hospital ( _he talked and talked and talked, even when the teacher was talking because he felt a pressure in his stomach and a crawling behind his brain and he already knew what the teacher was saying and he could say it faster and better but the words didn't always come out right, but he wanted the lesson to be over so that he could go_ see his mom).

One hundred and forty seven days before his ninth birthday, Stiles stood at his mother’s graveside as dirt was poured over the casket they had put her in. Two weeks earlier, he had given her a book report he had written for his fourth grade class. He had gotten a good grade, his dad had gotten a call from his teacher, and his mom had smiled and cried when she read the title and gently told him that the plural of phenomenon was phenomena. They talked about finches and tortoises and cuckoos and humans and which species they thought would live on the earth the longest late into the night. Stiles fell asleep to the quiet voices of his parents talking about schools on the west coast, skipping grades, and something about _after_.

When Stiles was twenty four, two days before he graduated with his third doctorate, his dad drove the six hours to Berkeley from the tiny town they had lived in since his mother died. While showing off his lab, an earthquake struck, causing some _really not so good no we can’t get out of the building dad we have to get in the chemical shower right this second_ chemicals to spill on and his father.

Twenty minutes after the tremors faded and the pair were soaked with ( _mostly just water now - it's totally fine daddy-o_ ) news reports showed the broken tresses of the Golden Gate, and a monster stepped out of the bay, walked right through the middle of campus and right through the lab that the two were still in. Stiles remembered his dad pushing pieces of wall off of his body and sirens and a dripping blue glow covering his dad’s chest. As his dad stroked his hair, Stiles tried to tell him ( _chemicals again and showers_ ) and his dad smiled down at him and told him that they had done that earlier, and all the chemicals were gone and to just worry about himself right now.

Three days after he was supposed to get his third doctorate, a nuclear bomb was dropped over Oakland, Stiles woke up from surgery, was told that he had lost his dad, but that they had been able to keep his leg. Stiles was not able to watch his father be buried. Stiles wasn't even sure that his dad _had_ been buried ( _eighteen thousand, five hundred twenty three dead because of crushed buildings and toxic blue blood and ninety thousand dead from the missile strikes that killed the monster and four thousand, twenty five people missing and too too too many dead to keep track of one cop from out of town_ ).

While Stiles was in the hospital recovering, he received a letter from a Dr. Lydia Martin, which applied his first doctorate’s dissertation about _Evolutionary progress of homologous structures_ , projected in combination with the dissertation he had defended very recently: _Neurological convergence in Animalia_ to the monster attack. Dr. Martin berated some of his statistical analyses, complemented his jumps of logic, and astounded him with her own input. The letter was handwritten, perfumed, and in German. He thought that the last bit was confusion about his last name, but it felt more like a test.

Just as the death of his mother had driven Stiles into a pursuit of education and a passion for both evolutionary and neurological biology, the death of Stiles’s father and the pain in his leg sent him into a crazed scramble to _do better, learn more, and use use use_ _what he finds out to find out more_. The feeling of _too much too much too much_ creeped back into his body and took up residence at the base of his spine. Sometimes, when the pain was too much and morphine was dripping and his dad’s blue eyes _glowed glowed glowed_ in his dreams it would creep up into his brain like the monster had creeped into his world. Stiles studied and read and wrote to keep the nightmares away and the overwhelming at bay and to try to put the jumble of _words and thoughts and ideas_ in order. In six months, he had a medical degree that he earned in a hospital bed, a reliance on pain medication, piles of correspondence between Dr. Martin ( _doctor of engineering, doctor of mathematics, German because she went to graduate school in Germany, never not insulting the perfectly fine significance of his publications_ ). Fifteen days after he rolled his wheelchair out of the hospital, news of another monster attack in Milan reached the USA. Three days later, the monsters were named Kaiju, an emergency alert was issued worldwide, and Stiles bought a plane ticket to Cambridge to _learn, find, solve_ at MIT.

By his twenty fifth birthday, Stiles had taught himself to walk again, even if his leg disagreed with the idea. He had a cane that he forgot about, constant bruises on his good knee, three more doctorates, a teaching position at MIT, and the world’s best mind in applied biology. He still wrote to Dr. Martin and she still wrote back and Stiles thinks that this is the closest relationship that he’s had with anyone other than his parents. She says that she’s writing code for robots to fight the Kaiju in between insults and criticisms and hidden complements that tell him to keep learning and using that knowledge ( _they are both learning learning learning and that means that they are both fighting fighting fighting the Kaiju the only way they can_ ). Stiles responded with the results of a test he hadn't had the chance to publish ( _dude, Lyds, don’t you dare use neoprene in those tin cans the kaiju blue melts right through it and seriously, if you’re going to use an actinide 235 core it would be pretty stupid anyway and yes yes yes I know you’re only doing the coding but give these specs to the head engineer okay?_ ) and wishes her a happy 26th birthday. Every letter sent and received makes Stiles feel less alone.

Five hundred and thirty eight days after his father’s death, Stiles is able to walk into a tattoo parlor, cane in hand, and get a tattoo of Trespasser across his shoulders, right where the anxiety builds every night while he lays in bed. He likes being able to blame the Kaiju for the weight that pushes him into a slouch, and the pain from the needle stabbing his skin _over and over and over_ makes him forget about the pain in his leg.

Five months later, he meets Lydia ( _That’s Dr. Martin, thank you._ ) in person. She _hates_ him and he _picks and picks and picks_ at her patience, just like he _tried and tries and tried_ to do _more and better and most_ until they are screaming at each other ( _in German, why is it German?_ ) and she leaves the coffee shop with sharp, clicking heels that make Stiles’s leg pulse in pain with each. single. step. Three weeks later he writes her a letter about the newest Kaiju landing in Tokyo. He still feels the flush of anger at her attitude towards him, her stark disregard for his excitement about the apparent biological differences between each Kaiju, and her irritating disposition and pride, but he writes to her anyway because it took him so long to find someone who asks questions like him and thinks like him and learns knows finds fights like him and he can’t give that up. He thinks that maybe she feels the same because one week later he receives a letter ( _still handwritten, still perfumed, but this time in Spanish_ ) eviscerating a paper he submitted to Cell three days ago that Stiles hasn't even gotten a confirmation email about ( _how many contacts does Lydia have anyway? How did she get a hold of his paper already?_ ). Lyds ( _Dr. Martin, if you please._ ) tells him that she’s enrolling in the Jaeger Academy. Stiles keeps teaching and researching and learning, but the weight of the world’s desperation hits him like a ton of bricks and he knows that he has to do more. Another doctorate won’t help him understand the monsters or help or keep the crawling slinking oil of anxiety from the nape of his neck ( _he isn't close enough, he doesn't know enough and he wants to help_ ). Stiles wraps up his research, finishes the academic year's lectures, and enrolls in the Jaeger Academy.


End file.
